I feel you pain but everything just worked for me so I have to wonder whether it is an environmental problem and not a mafia problem. If you are on a slow or crappy connection things could be timing out. If you are on a slow computer I can imagine a set of conditions where one part of mafia takes so long to process the response that another part thinks a timeout occurred. Whether it is actually possible for those conditions to occur is beyond my ability to assess at the moment. It might also be a patience issue. While I have not had any serious problems with the buffbot page for quite some time it is true that I get more of them when I try to open the buffbot window when mafia is doing something else like Breakfast or auto-adventure. If the problem is related to resources on your computer than chat windows open in mafia might also be a factor.
Well, I'm using a fairly powerful Mac, and when the problem occurs, I still have plenty of unused memory available (and not even coming close to taxing my processing power). As for my internet connection, it is extremely reliable (it's a provider that chiefly serves commercial clients in downtown Denver), and my machine is connected directly to the modem (so, no issues due to bad WiFi, router configuration, etc.).
It's not a patience issue (when mafia is unable to fetch buff prices after 5 minutes of idling), and it's not due to mafia being tied up with other activity (such as Breakfast or auto-adventure).
Here's another example of oddity: I have two instances of mafia open at the moment (8571 and 8572). I attempt to fetch buff prices on 8571, and leave it idling. I attempt to fetch buff prices on 8572, and it does so immediately. 8571 continues to idle indefinitely (the length of time it took me to write this far). I logout 8571, and sign back in. Still can't fetch prices. I logout, quit, relaunch, sign in, and NOW I can fetch buff prices. So whatever resource-related problem may be occurring here, my inexpert opinion is that it is not a problem with my system, or my connection, but that it is an issue within mafia itself.
From past experience, relaunching mafia is not a
reliable solution, but as far as I know, it is the
only solution available (if mafia hangs on fetching buff prices, it will not be successful in doing so
unless relaunched). Since mafia no longer forgets my fullness and spleen(nes?) anymore (when did
that change occur, I only noticed it today), I guess I no longer have a reason for my previous aversion to relaunching mafia when this problem occurs, but still, there it is.
